Steam Drivers

Indeed.

I am not sure though that the application of such an approach as that suggested is likely to significantly reduce the risk of an incident. Diesel training by type has its roots in the fact that the starting and stopping, procedures, controls and most importantly fault finding differs so very much between classes. This variation is not repeated in the same way in steam classes.

 

It would be interesting to know whether this would have helped with incidents like Blue Peter at Durham or the tragedy on the NYMR with the S15 last year...

 

All I Can do at the moment is quote from the HRA 'Sidelines', as follows:

1/ RAIL ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BRANCH.
On 13th August, we held our annual liaison meeting with the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. We
discussed recent incidents reported and recommendations and lessons to be learnt. Key topics for
member railways to note are:
1. Type competence for steam locomotives - HRA was able to report that we are revising our
Guidance note to recommend steam drivers be passed as competent by class of locomotive,
following the established practice for diesel locomotive drivers. RAIB strongly endorsed this
recommendation.


The revised guidance is yet to be issued so we'll just have to wait and see what comes out. What annoys me is that the HRA have, to my knowledge, not consulted their membership on this subject. They are effectively creating back-door legislation because it will be quite a problem if railways don't comply.

 

Read the HRA Guidance Note. It says "Assessors should achieve this competence using a nationally-recognised approach such as the A1 assessor training course."

 

Whilst BR experience may have been that steam locomotives were sufficiently homogenous that a single test of competence would suffice, I would suggest that this is no longer the case given that some locomotives are dedicated to the main line and therefore fitted with required technology [e.g. TPMS] whilst some have air brakes; some air and vacuum brakes and some vacuum brakes only. Therefore on main line locomotives alone there are a variety of types which means that it is becoming increasingly unlikely that the BR homogeneity will ever be achieved and the need for driver familiarity is becoming increasingly apparent.

After the Blue Peter incident, when driver experience was questioned as a factor in the incident, I mooted then that there must surely come a time when a competent person familiar with the specific locomotive in use - who should also be owner's representative - must be on the footplate of every heritage locomotive that is operated on the main line. IIRC the situation at Exeter when the driver of the problem locomotive ignored the owner who was also on the footplate (albeit as fireman !) also brought to mind the status and authority of personnel on the footplate. For example does the owner's rep have greater authority than footplate crew even if serving as an approved footplate person or is the driver the ultimate authority ? - a point to be clarified.

The situation on the main line is compounded further on heritage lines where not only does each line have regulations asto how locomotives are operated but may even be fitted with unique equipment suitable for specific use on the home line thereby reducing locomotive homogeneity even further and suggesting that competence with a locomotive on the heritage line(s) does not necessarily equate with competency on the main line. As if to emphasise the point I believe the NRM policy is that NRM locomotives visiting heritage line(s) are always accompanied by a competent NRM staff member - often Ray Towell until his recent retirement.

This really is a situation that should have been forseen at the time of the Blue Peter incident when locomotive owners had the chance to determine the operating procedures that would best suit them and their locomotives - especially when operated on the main line. Now their lack of action means that there is a good chance that conditions will be imposed that many locomotive owners disagree with but could have been avoided had they grasped the nettle at an earlier stage.

 

So presumably it will be up to individual railways to group their resident locos into like types and structure their exams accordingly. For example it would seem reasonable to group Black Fives and LM 8fs together are operationally they are pretty similar (unless you have defaced individual ones with vacuum operated through air brakes etc).

Thank heaven for the oft derided GWR standardisation!

The most difficult issue would appear to be the approach to short term visiting engines of a type alien to the host line.
Having been involved in both visiting and being visited I have come across support crews who range from absolute expert - totally knowledgeable on every aspect of their charge through to "Its Buggins's turn to ride" when you end up with the visiting loco being accompanied by a camera festooned individual who, whilst clad in overalls, has no real idea how the loco he/she is supposed to be looking after should be operated.
Perhaps an important initial step would be to close that particular loophole and insist that visiting locos are accompanied properly?

 

Another problem with locomotives visiting is the home crews supposing that they know better than the owner's rep. I have been owner's rep and have found some crews/railways take the attitude that they know better, on one occasion with unfortunate results which weren't serious but did give me a wry chuckle afterwards. But the flip side is as mentioned above when the owner/rep actually doesn't know anything about the loco or how to manage it properly which can also cause problems and potentially serious issues. However, everyone seems to be getting a little ahead of themselves as, if I read correctly, the HRA's notes are currently mooted as guidance, not legislation.

As regards record keeping, Heritage Railways all need to do the utmost to ensure that their competency records are up to date as this is something that will be looked into carefully in the event of any incident!

 

Surely a system not dissimilar to that I use at work ought to be adopted, upon encountering a 'new' class/loco/piece of equipment some familiarisation is issued. the level of familiarisation or training will be different dependent on a pretty straightforward risk assessment (likely dynamic and made on the fly).

ie; I use powerboats at work, usually these are outboard powered stick helm- a few weeks ago I had to use one with a console (ie a steering wheel and a throttle lever) as such my first time doing that I was paired with a crew who uses that particular type of craft regularly. This allowed me to pick up the particular quirks of the craft and I went away feeling happier and it was a tick in the box for their skills sheet- not exactly onerous!

-Basically its a peer reviewing system, it helps people keep on top of competence and allows people to gain familiarity with 'new' equipment.

Its an interesting one to go into, working in industrial safety I can see an argument for going either way formal or informal- all I will say is I had to do a driving assessment to allow me to drive a landrover for work on the road the other day- is this or is this not a similar scenario- and is this or is this not necessary?

Chris

 

I don't think that there will be any problem with maintaining competency records. The biggest problem will be matching crew competence to loco, both of which can be short notice changeable, and the significant additional assessment burden.

 

so how many classes of Steam locomotive do we have in preservation, and sub classes ? (ex-BR, Pre-grouping, industrial, narrow gauge etc).
Then how many preserved lines/musuems etc do we have in the UK.

Multiply 1 by the other.. and hey presto a national competency directory..

next question.. how many classes of "1" example do we have.
thats a lot more than diesels.

 

Well, I can answer that just for one railway.

On the Bluebell, we have 30 steam locomotives.

That excludes:
- Sharpthorne, which is unlikely ever to steam again
- Stamford, which is on very long term loan away
- L150 and the MHR 9f, which are on loan from elsewhere

But includes:
- Beachy Head and 84030, both of which will conceivably be serviceable before some of the other locos in the fleet.

Those 30 locomotives comprise 24 different classes (counting rebuilt and original Bulleid pacifics as separate classes, as they have significant differences in reverser, dampers and crew visibility). It's easier to list the examples where we have multiples: three 80xxx tanks; three P class tanks; two terriers, two U-Boats. Everything else on the railway is a lone example, at least to us. And even in the duplicates there are significant differences: for example, Fenchurch is an air braked loco with vacuum for the train, whereas Stepney is pure vac braked.

11 of those locos are unique in preservation (H, C, O1, Dukedog, E4, NLR tank, Adams Tank, Q, Atlantic, 84xxx tank, Baxter).

They range from a ca. 20 ton 0-4-0T with a 150psi boiler, about 8,000lb TE and about 8 square feet of grate all the way through to a 140 ton 2-10-0 with nearly 40,000lb of TE and a 40 square feet of grate.

OK, we are probably an extreme example in the diversity (both in size and type) of our fleet, but that's a lot of separate crew competency records to maintain, and potentially a very awkward job to roster!

Tom

 

Excuse my ignorance are the three 80xxx the 73xxx and the 75xxx the same layout, as i was once talking to a driver on another line who told me if you can drive one of the standard class you can drive them all, i thought i would ask you as all three exist on the bluebell.

 

That sort of gets to the heart of the issue - how similar do locos have to be before they are deemed to be essentially identical? On the one hand, I'd argue that C, H, P and O1 are all very similar in layout of controls, varying just in size (and associated issues, like judging where the extremes of the loco are when buffering up etc). But at the other extreme, you could argue they are different locos, so require different competence assessments. It just depends where you draw the line.

And that's before you get to in-class variations: our two Terriers are ostensibly the same class, but actually differ quite fundamentally in at least one key safety-critical system: the brakes.

As for the standards: TBH, I've never been on Camelot or 75027 in steam to have a look! They were before my time... Which raises another issue, which is the slow tunraround of locos. I don't have the numbers to hand, but I would have thought that only a minority of our drivers have driving experience of the Adams, NLR tank, USA tank, Q, S15 * etc. Probably a fair number of our drivers have experience on those locos as firemen, but equally most of our firemen will have no or minimal experience on those locos, and the cleaners none.

* Last operational dates:
Adams tank: 1990
Schools: ca. 1990
NLR tank: 1993
Q: 1993
USA tank: ?
S15: 1997

That's the best part of a quarter of a century since anyone had any experience on the Adams...

Tom

 

Surely, you only need to maintain records for serviceable locos - 6 loco classes + 2 visitors.

 

So what happens to competency qualification when one of the locos under restoration return to traffic ?

 

How long would a steam driver be deemed competent if they haven't driven a particular class of loco a period of time? Don't main line diesel drivers have to take a refresher exam if they haven't driven a particular class of loco for x amount of time.

 

No, because locos go into and come out of service far quicker than the turnover of crew. What we had operational five years ago is very different from what we have now, and what we will have in five years' time will be very different again. Most lines, particularly larger ones, would have a similar situation.

Tom

 

Thanks, you just made me feel really old.. Ive had a footplate ride on that.

 

My point was that when a loco goes out of service, the competency database effectively "freezes" for that loco. What happens when a loco re-enters traffic probably depends on how long it been out - if it's only for a short time, then the loco can probably just be re-activated in the database with the drivers who formerly had competency retaining it. If it's been out of traffic for a long time, there may well be a requirement for at least a "refresher" before a driver is deemed competent again.